


Family Functionality

by Princex_N



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Autistic Pines Family, Brother Feels, Claustrophobia, Compulsions, Coping, Delusions, Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Grounding, Hallucinations, Insomnia, Mental Health Issues, Nonverbal Communication, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Panic Attacks, Pines helping each other out with BadBrain shit, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychosis, Psychotic Mabel, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Harm, Teenage Pines Twins, Trans Dipper Pines, meltdowns, those tiny annoying ones, through self-injurious stims
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-22
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-09-26 08:26:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9876413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princex_N/pseuds/Princex_N
Summary: Bad nights in the Shack are a pretty common experience; thankfully, there's usually someone else around to help them out.Or, four times the Pines helped each other out with their mental health.





	1. Mabel

**Author's Note:**

> found this draft in one of my folders and was like "i have a fuck ton of college work and three in progress fics at the moment. Starting another one sounds like a solid plan" so here we are.

Mabel hasn't slept in two days and she's starting to get really tired (ha!) of it all. 

It's one in the morning, and Mabel has been getting more knitting done than she has in a while. Dipper has noticed the increase in production, but he hasn't said anything. _Yet_. Mabel knows it's only a matter of time; if this goes on for much longer, she's not going to be able to get him to leave her alone. 

Tonight, he'd tried to stay up with her, the way he always does when Mabel gets like this. But just like he always does, he fell asleep by midnight and hasn't stirred since. 

Mabel knows that Dipper needs a lot of sleep, and so she isn't holding it against him, but sometimes she does wish that this task didn't always have to fall to her. 

Several stitches slip off of her needles, her hands are shaking, the yarn feels gross under her damp hands. Her idle rocking becomes a little more urgent. 

Sometimes flickers at the corner of her eye. 

Her breath catches, and her head jerks back, giving her a full view of the rest of the room from her corner, and it's empty. 

Or, at least, it seems to be. It's entirely possible that whatever that was is hiding in the room. (There's two spaces, at the feet of the beds, that Mabel can't see, but she's too scared to move over and look, but she really  _should_.) 

Mabel swallows hard and tries to take a deep breath. 

 _It's alright, you're alright, they can't get you, take deep breaths_ , she reminds herself. 

She manages to get all of the stitches back onto her needles, and finishes a few more rows in relative peace when she hears footsteps thundering down the hallway. 

A cry catches in her throat as she jumps backwards, knitting forgotten, pressing her back against the corner of her wall, her hands reaching out for something,  _anything,_ her heart is beating a gazillion times a minute and she can't breathe and they're  _coming_ and...

Nothing happens. 

Nothing moves. The door remains shut, the door doesn't move, nothing shows up from under the door. Mabel holds her breath, keeping her eyes open despite the panicked tears that are beginning to well up in them. 

Was that sound real?

She doesn't know, and Dipper isn't awake to do a check with her. She doesn't move, and nothing happens. The door remains shut, nothing is trying to force its way through or under it, she can't hear anything else. 

She forces herself to relax, but she doesn't go back to her knitting, not yet. She has to keep looking at the room to make sure. Who knows where they might be tucked away; she might have missed them before, she has to make sure. 

She's suddenly hit by the thought that she doesn't know if the front door is locked. 

Grunkle Stan is usually really good at locking it, and either he or Ford always checks it before they go to bed, but what if they didn't today? What if something gets in?

She doesn't think that anything really  _would_ , but now that the thought is in her head, she can't stop thinking about it, and her breath is starting to come faster with every passing second, and it isn't long before she resigns herself to the fact that she's going to have to go down and check. 

She stares at the distance between her bed and her door; it's never seemed so far away. She really doesn't want to have to get up. 

But she also has to make sure that her family is safe, and Mabel would do  _anything_ for her family. So she grabs the pair of straight knitting needles that she isn't using, and she braces herself. 

_It's okay, you're okay, they can't get you, take deep breaths._

She grips the needles, and leaps out of bed as quietly as she can manage. 

Her heart jumps in her chest and she holds her breath, needles at the ready, but nothing comes at her and nothing moves and she doesn't hear anything, and so she cautiously proceeds to the door, although she nearly pulls a muscle in her neck with how rapidly she checks to make sure that there's nothing behind the beds. 

She presses her back to the door and surveys the room one last time, to make sure, and then she turns and presses her ear to the door and listens intently for any kind of sound, and she hears nothing. 

She takes several deep breaths, and carefully opens the door, checking both ends of the hallway before proceeding. 

She makes it all the way down the stairs and to the door without anything happening. She turns the door knob, and finds it locked. She peers through the peep hole to make sure that nothing is waiting out there, and then unlocks the door, checks to make sure it opens properly, and then shuts it, relocks it, and checks it once more. 

Finally satisfied, she turns around to see something looming behind her, and immediately the needles are up, mouth open and ready to scream, and she moves forward only to be interrupted by a frantically whispered, "Mabel!"

She pauses, and forces her eyes to focus on what's in front of her. 

Grunkle Ford. 

"Oh my god! Grunkle Ford! I didn't know it was you, I'm sorry, I just had to check the door, I didn't mean to attack you, I-," 

"Hush Mabel, it's okay! I didn't mean to startle you! What are you doing up so late?" Ford asks, hands up, palms out, to show that he doesn't pose any threat. 

Mabel forces herself to lower the needles, "I'm just... having a bad night, that's all." She says, because she knows that they  _know_ , but that doesn't mean it's any easier to talk about. 

Luckily Ford understands what she means. "Ah," he says, fumbling a bit. "Well, you know that they aren't real," he says, but there's a hesitation that Mabel always notices. 

The biggest problem about living in this place with these people is that there's  _always_ a shadow of a doubt about what's real and what's not. And the fact that Ford is awake and up at this time means that he's probably not faring any better tonight. 

Then Ford's face clears up, "But I know exactly what we can do!" 

Mabel is trying to pay attention to what he's doing, but she's also starting to feel herself panic. The downstairs lights are all off, and this is a very open area; looking around, she can just barely see the rest of the room, but it's cloaked in shadows that could easily be hiding  _anything_ and something could come from any direction and she wouldn't be able to see it until it was too late. 

Ford doesn't seem to pick up on her panic, although he does reach over her shoulder to turn on the lights. "I've been working on a ward that's meant to keep out everything that harbors any sort of ill will, but at the moment it only covers a very small area. So, what can you tell me about these monsters? Are they generally threatening? Or are - would they be targeting you specifically?" 

Mabel drags her attention off of the rooms to look at Ford and think through his question, "Uh, just me this time." 

"Splendid," he says, "This way we don't have to bother our brothers. Come on, we can set up on the couch." 

"Grunkle Ford, you don't have to do anything. I can just go back to bed," Mabel protests, but that doesn't stop her from following him. 

He waves her statement away easily. "Don't be ridiculous. Like I said, I've been waiting for an opportunity to try this out, and this is as good a time as any. Now, sit here, and this is how it works..." 

He starts drawing on the floor, explaining about what all the different lines and symbols mean, and Mabel sits on the couch and pretends to know what he's talking about. When he's finished, the circle flares a pale blue before settling back into just regular writing. Ford rocks backwards on his heels, seeming pleased, so Mabel assumes that the circle is working as it's meant to. It  _does_ help her feel a little safer, and it also helps that the couch is backed by a solid wall. 

The next problem is that she's still nowhere near being able to sleep, and now that Ford is done with his task, he's beginning to take on his usual uncomfortable awkwardness that comes from not knowing what to do next. 

"Do you mind if we turn the TV on?" Mabel asks, and Ford nods and relaxes. They find some old cartoon that Ford watched as a kid, and Mabel finds herself drifting off because she  _hasn't_ slept for two days and she's tired. She hesitates for a moment, "Can I touch you today?" 

He takes a little while to answer, which is pretty normal for him. But eventually, Ford replies in the affirmative, and Mabel curls up against his side, and he wraps an arm around her. The monsters are still out there, probably, but Ford is smart and she trusts him, even if the ward doesn't work like it's supposed to, she knows that he'll protect her from anything that shows up. 

She falls asleep not much later, feeling safer than she has in day. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> communication is really important, different people have different needs, and dealing with delusions is no exception. make sure to ask what someone needs before you try and step in and help, because you might just make everything worse without meaning to.  
> 


	2. Dipper

Dipper wakes up and as he stares at the ceiling, he's hit with the sudden disorienting feeling of dysphoria. 

He doesn't know who he is. 

His thoughts go haywire the moment that connects. He doesn't know who he is, he  _knows_ who he is, but at the same time, he doesn't have a single clue. 

He tries to think it through, he tries to use those anchors that he and Mabel talked about because this happens all the time, and he's tired of it, and he should be used to it, but no matter how many times this happens, he'll never get used to this feeling like he's being physically torn into two pieces. 

 _My name is As- My name is Dipper? My name is Dipper._ His name situation isn't helping him. Some voice in the back of his head nags that 'Dipper' isn't a real name; it's a nickname. 

The feeling in his chest gets worse. 

_My name is Dipper. I'm at the Mystery Shack for the summer. I'm a human. I'm with my sister and my two great uncles. This is real._

Is it real?

His breath catches in his throat, he looks down at his feet; he's standing up. When had he stood up? What was he going to do? He can't remember. 

 _My name is Pine- my name is Dipper_. He makes some kind of broken noise in his throat; he didn't mean to make that noise, he lifts his hand to his mouth and sinks his teeth into the side of it, biting down and feeling the pain like an anchor. 

 _This is real_ , he tells himself, but he's not really sure anymore. 

"Dipper? Are you okay?" Dipper sinks to his knees; he'd stood up but he doesn't remember why. He presses his back against the wooden frame of his bed, resists the urge to slam his head against it, and bites down harder. 

Someone's hands are on his, pulling his hand away from his mouth. He whines, but let's go, even if he doesn't want to. 

"Dipper, hey, are you listening?" Mabel's voice is quiet, but loud enough to cut through the noise in his head. He can't think straight, can't concentrate, doesn't know what's going on, but he nods. 

"Okay, can you talk right now?" His throat is tight, his tongue doesn't feel like it belongs in his mouth, his teeth are aching. 

"Yes," he manages to croak out. 

"Okay, that's great. Try and breathe alright?" He takes in a shuddering breath so deep his lungs ache. "Great. Okay. What's your name?"

"As-... Dipper." 

"Aah, what's your name?" she asks again, a teasing note forced into her voice. 

"Dipper," he repeats, dragging in another breath. 

"How old are you?"

"Fifteen."

"Where's Bill?"

He's forcing Dipper out of his body, he's inside Dipper's chest, he's inside his head, he's forcing his way in, he's- "He's dead, he's gone. We got rid of him."

"That's right. Good job. Alright, where are we?"

They go through the line of questioning, repeating questions multiple times if they have to. Dipper's breath slowly stop coming in shallow pants, the tears he doesn't remember starting to shed slowly stop, he manages to loosen his fist so that his nails stop digging into his palms. 

He's Dipper Pines, he's fifteen years old, he's at the Mystery Shack for the summer. He is one person, not two. 

"Thank you," he mumbles. He doesn't say that underneath the drowsiness that always follows these episodes his thoughts still won't quite settle down and that he's not entirely sure if he's not at least a person and a half shoved into this body, but he gets the feeling that she can tell without him having to say anything. 

"No problem bro, you should go back to sleep, it's still early," Mabel replies easily, and she helps him up, and practically shoves him back into bed, and Dipper lays back and distantly hopes that he'll feel like himself when he wakes up before he falls back to sleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Complicated name situations can really make grounding yourself a bit difficult. I don't actually remember what I'd decided that Dipper's deadname was, but that's fine. Deadnames belong in the dust anyway.


	3. Ford

Ford becomes aware of the fact that he's curled under his desk.

He doesn't quite remember hiding, but now that he's here, he doesn't intend to move, even if it's entirely useless. 

He's trying not to breathe, which doesn't seem to be working, since he's hyperventilating. This hasn't happened to him in a while, he knows, but that doesn't change the fact that he's being watched. 

_'Bill is gone,'_ he tries to remind himself, but it doesn't work. Bill is never gone; he's too powerful to be as gone as Ford needs him to be, and it'll only be a matter of time before he comes back. 

Ford has made a lot of mistakes throughout the course of his life, getting involved with Bill is one of the worst. He was supposed to be smarter than that; he should have been able to  _see_ the signs before it was too late. 

That seems to be the only thing Ford  _is_ good at; seeing the important things far too late. 

He drives his fist into his thigh. He should have been better. He should have been  _better_. 

He presses his face into his knees,  _'Hurting yourself is bad,'_ he tries to tell himself. It doesn't work. This is not enough. He makes an odd noise, something like a moan. He presses his face down harder, tries to make the pressure enough. It is not. 

He throws his head back, slamming it into the back board of his desk. Pain reverberates through his skull. 

Part of Ford recognizes that this is a meltdown. Most of him is struggling to stop making these pitching whining sounds and  _breathe_. 

He hits his head again, makes it a part of the rocking motion he's started; he has one arm wrapped around his knees, the other is pressed to his face in a futile attempt to keep himself quiet before he attracts any unwanted attention. 

Something in the shadows begins to whisper. He curls up tighter, he can't make himself stop moving, so he makes the motions terse. 

This is a mess and he is a mess and he is too old for things like this. 

"Sixer?" Ford whines, he knew it, he  _knew_ it. It was only a matter of time before Bill returned. He cracks his head against the wood again, as if hurting himself could possibly make the demon go away. It's hopeless, he knows this, but he's stuck there, caught in the throes of a meltdown and utterly unable to move in order to flee and protect his family. How incredibly useless he is. 

There's a brief scuffle, and Ford listens helplessly, waiting for the inevitable. 

Someone reaches over him and puts something soft between Ford's head and the desk, keeping him from hurting himself further. He groans, but can't get his body to cooperate properly to move his arms to get a good look at what's going on around him. Ford hasn't felt like this in a long time; he has not missed it. 

Something heavy and familiar is draped over his head and shoulders, weighing down his body and blocking out the sounds and lights of the basement. He's more than a little bewildered by this, as much as he is grateful for it, because this is not the sort of thing that Bill does. Ford is still not quite able to move, but he forces himself to focus on steadying his breathing as he listens intently. 

The fact that Ford can hear footsteps indicates that this is  _probably_ might not be Bill that he's dealing with here. 

Possession is, of course, always a possibility and so Ford doesn't quite let his guard down  _yet_ , but the sound of a "Ford, it's Stan" spoken as softly as the speaker can manage causes relief to hit Ford like a punch to the chest. The anxiety is still there - Ford probably won't be able to shake the paranoia completely until he's able to do a visual confirmation with Lee's eyes - but it's enough to take the edge off the episode for now. 

Ford starts to focus less on his surroundings and more on himself; the pressure of the fabric that's been spread over him, the steady rocking of his body, the vibrations of the muffled humming he's started to block out residual background noise. He lets himself breathe deeper, and eventually,  _finally_ , he stops crying, calms down, and is able to uncurl his body slightly and peek out. 

Stanley is sitting at the opening of the desk, far enough away to keep from accidentally touching Ford but close enough that nothing can get by. He's not looking at Ford, but outwards at the rest of the basement; keeping watch. 

Ford shifts unsteadily, pulling on his jacket properly and tightening it around him, but keeps his knees up and his arms wrapped around himself, swaying gently. The position makes him feel more solid. He clears his throat uncertainly. 

Stan immediately turns to look, and he smiles when he sees that Ford has emerged from his tense defensive posturing. 

"How're you holding up?" Stan asks, and Ford shrugs. He's tired, but the worst seems to have passed. "Glad to see you're feeling better. You want to stay under there?"

Ford hesitates, then nods. He drops his knees into a more cross-legged position; it's an easier way to sit that gives him a wider range of motion. 

"Alright," Stan replies easily. "The kids are upstairs eating dinner, but they're not expecting us back soon, so you don't have to hurry. You want me to leave?"

Ford tries to come up with an answer, but can't. On one hand, he kind of  _does_ want to be left alone, so that he can build himself back together and not have to worry about potential threats. But on the other hand, if he's alone and occupied with trying to get himself up and a threat arrives, he won't be able to defend himself to the best of his capabilities. He doesn't know what to pick. He freezes. 

Stan picks up on it quickly. "Alright, what if I stay down in the basement, but give you some space. Does that work?"

Ford thinks it over quickly, and then nods. That works, he can make that work. 

"Got it," Stan says, heaving himself up with a loud grunt, "Give me a shout if you need me for something." And Ford is alone. 

He reaches back and pulls out the soft thing that Stan had placed behind Ford's head earlier, and turns up with Stan's blazer. He hadn't even noticed Stan wasn't wearing it. Ford folds it carefully and squeezes it to his chest -he'll give it back when he gets up- and resumes rocking. 

_'You don't deserve this,'_ hisses a voice,  _'You don't deserve him.'_

Ford knows this. The difference is, he thinks as he smooths his fingers over the texture of his brother's jacket, that he has every opportunity and intention now of  _earning_ it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more week until spring break; thank god. But I read over Stan's chapter and I'm a bit dissatisfied with it, so I'm going to have to rewrite the whole thing instead of copying it over, so it _might_ come out a little later than expected. Hopefully not too long though!!!   
>  Also thanks to everyone leaving kudos on this fic?! I really appreciate them!!


	4. Stan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God damn, it should not have taken me as long as it did to get this finished (；´д｀)ゞ sorry

Stan doesn't usually spend any time in the basement now that Ford's returned, just because he doesn't need to anymore. Going down into the basement had been necessary, but now that all of that is over, Stan doesn't have a reason to spend time down there anymore, and he doesn't really want to in the first place. 

The problem is that Ford still spends a  _lot_ of time down there, and Stan had been taking care of his brother since they were kids, and if no one else is going to drag Ford back upstairs to make sure that he eats every once in a while, then Stan is going to have to be the one to do it. 

That means he has to take the elevator. 

And Stan would have thought that after spending thirty years going down this elevator on a daily basis at least  _some_ of that claustrophobia would have receded, but if Stan has learned one thing throughout all of his years of being alive, it's that nothing ever works out right for him. Ever. 

Which is why he's found himself stuck in the elevator, which has finally decided that it's time for it to croak. 

This is of course, not the best time for that to happen. 

(That's not to say that it's couldn't be  _worse_. It could have happened while Stan was still living alone up here, but that's one of the scenarios Stan tries very hard to avoid thinking about) 

"You have got to be kidding me," Stan snarls, pounding his fist against the metal doors of the elevator, as if that could somehow jostle the entire thing loose. 

"Don't worry!" Dipper says, voice as nervous as it always is. "Grunkle Ford will probably notice that something is wrong any second now!" 

If Stan's release is resting on his brother actually noticing something that's happening around him, then Stan is going to die in here. 

Fantastic. 

"You've got to be fu-kidding me," he growls, stumbling over the swear like he hasn't in a while. This is one of the worst thing that's ever happened to him. His teeth ache with phantom pains from all those years ago. This can't be happening to him. 

"Hey, are you okay?" 

"I'm peachy, kid." Stan isn't pretending like he's not hyperventilating. There's no need to pretend if something  _isn't_ happening, and it's  _not_. He's perfectly fine. He's going to die in this elevator like he should have died in that trunk all those years ago and everything is perfectly fucking fine. Aces. The best. 

 _No puedo respirar_ , he can almost hear his own voice shouting the words, lisped through broken teeth, which is stupid, because Stan doesn't  _beg_ , Stan's never begged, except for that one time. He tries not to think of that one time too often --he's got enough bad memories stuffed in his head without thinking about more of them-- but he's thinking about it now. The memory rides hot and heavy on his chest like it's just been waiting for the right time to unearth itself. 

Stan can't believe his fucking luck. This finally has to happen to him, and he's trapped with the kid. He doesn't even get some privacy to have this long awaited breakdown in peace. 

It's gotten pretty easy to hold himself together, he's had practice, and it's always been easier to hold himself together in front of the kids. They're kids and the last thing they need to see is an adult breaking down, not when they're held together so delicately themselves. 

But maybe Stan's too old now, or maybe this is just too raw; he's not doing a very good job of holding himself together at all. 

Something touches his wrist and it's too much like the echo of layers of duct tape, and he pulls back as quickly as he can, and it takes a while for the shrill noise he's hearing to solidify into a voice saying "Grunkle Stan! You need to breathe!", which is stupid because he's going to fucking suffocate in this trunk, with his mouth aching and full of blood, but he's  _not_ because this isn't that fucking trunk and he hasn't been in there for  _decades_ now. 

"I'm fine, kid," he gasps out, "Just give me a second." 

Stan can almost feel the disbelief radiating off Dipper in waves, but the kid doesn't protest. He just stands there and taps his foot, and then all of a sudden he whips out that journal of his and starts rattling off information about one of the little creatures he's written about in there.

Stan is almost confused, because this isn't  _really_ his department, but the longer Dipper talks, the further away that trunk feels, and so Stan stands there and listens like he understands whatever it is that the kid is talking about. 

And before he knows it, the elevator shudders horrifically before it starts to complete its decent into the basement. Stan hisses, "Thank  _fucking_ God," and lets himself have the profanity just this once (because Dipper is fifteen now, and if he's not already swearing then he will be soon, so who  _really_ cares?).

The doors finally open to reveal a confused looking Stanford, who squints his eyes and asks, "How long have you two been in there?" Which, figures. Stan doesn't bother to answer, just shoulders past his twin, into the open space of the lab, and heaves in a desperate breath. 

"Grunkle Stan, are you alright?" Dipper asks hesitantly, and Stan nods and breathes in deep and runs a hand down his face before turning around with a grin on his face. 

"I'm great, kid," he says. Something in Dipper's shoulders relaxes just a bit even though he doesn't look like he's buying it for a second. Stan sighs, and tones down the grin and tries to be sincere for once and says, "Thanks Dipper," and the kid finally relaxes the rest of the way and smiles back. 

Stanford looks over their nephew's head with a questioning expression, but Stan waves him off. He's still rattled, but he'll be fine to head back up in a couple of seconds. 

He'll be fine. 

**Author's Note:**

> [my tumblr](http://www.princex-n.tumblr.com)


End file.
